


Truth and consequence

by Pearlislove



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, John smith and the common men, Susan is Bill's mum
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-01
Updated: 2018-05-01
Packaged: 2019-04-30 21:30:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14505858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pearlislove/pseuds/Pearlislove
Summary: Long ago, a little girl danced around in an empty classroom to the tunes of John Smith and the Common men.Way into the future, a woman hears her tutor trying to play a  very familiar tune on the guitare.Through time and space, odds and coicidences coencide to bring two people in need toghther.And of course, it all started with John Smith and the common men.





	Truth and consequence

**Author's Note:**

> I live for the Susan is Bill's mum theory. I did while the season was stillr unning, and I still do now. I LOVE IT.
> 
> That, and listening to Three Guitares mood Two by John Smith and the common men - which is the music that was played as we first meet Susan in 'An Unearthly Child' - inspiered this for me.

The Doctor sat at his desk, playing out a complicated guitar solo on his electric guitar. It wasn’t really one he’d tried before, and seeing how it would preferably have needed more than one guitare, The Doctor was too busy trying to get it right to notice anything else around him.

 

He didn’t even notice as BIll opened the door, tiptoeing into the room when she saw that he was already doing something. Quietly, she crept across the room until she was standing right in front of The Doctor, listening with passion to the music as he continued to play. By now, Bill was used to being ignored when The Doctor took to playing - not even Nardole tended to be able to get hold of him when he got started with the music. Not that Bill would want to, anyway, considering that being interrupted was sure to put The Doctor in a bad mood.

 

All in all, it was often preferable to just leave him alone when he was playing. Finally finishing up the piece, Bill applauded as the last few notes died off, giving him well-deserved credit for the well played piece.

 

“Good work Doctor!” Bill cheered, laughing as she saw the confusion in The Doctor’s eyes. “You're so talented!”

 

“Bill? When did you come here?” The Doctor asked, blinking like a sluggish owl, thinking maybe he was just hallucinating again. However, BIll stayed in place.

 

“I came about fifteen minutes ago, but you were too busy trying to work out that guitare comp to notice. Good work, by the way. Your original works are really good, but I do like that cover a lot.” She grinned.

 

The Doctor huffed. “Yeah right, as if you’ve heard the original. You don’t even know what I just played” The Doctor rebuked strongly.

 

“Actually, I do” Bill smiled, sitting down on the desk next to him. “Three Guitars mood two by John Smith and the common men, but with only one guitar. Right?” She asked, triumfant as she realised she had actually outsmarted The Doctor this time.

 

The Doctor blinked. “How did you know? John Smith and the common men were big in the 60s. Far too early for you.”

 

“I know” Bill nodded. “It was my mum’s favourite, though. She had it on vinyl. I used to listen to it when I was little, thought it’d bring me closer to her…” Bill paused, looking away from The Doctor. “Moira said she always claimed that she used to listen to it in the wireless when she was at school. Not that makes much sense, since she should have gone to school in the 80s. No radio stations that played it then.”

 

A chill crawls down The Doctors back. Suddenly, vividly, he could imagine Susan dancing around his control room. She’d keep her wireless mini radio to her ear, dancing around the room as the music played.

 

In the corner of his eye, he would always be seeing that little girl dancing, humming music long out of date under her breath as she smiled mischievously. In his mind, Susan always travelled with him.

 

“Susan Campbell. A good name, don’t you think?” Bill pondered out loud, and The Doctor look at her in terror. 

 

“Campbell?” He asks, terrified, suddenly frozen in shock and fear, refusing to believe he heard that right.

 

“My mother's name. Susan Campbell. Potts is from my dad, or something. I don’t know, but my mum was named Campbell. I always found that weird, you know, because she doesn’t actually look like it…” Bill explained, and for each word she added, The Doctor could feel the dread growing in him. 

 

He should have known. He had felt it, a presence poking at his mind as he hid in her closet and took photos of her.  But he had ignored it, thought it was a temporal disturbance picking up speed somewhere in the vortex.

 

_ She hate having her  a picture taken _

 

Bill had told him that, but when he came running through the park, asking if she’d pose from his photo project, she’d said yes without second thought.

 

Someone who hated having her photo taken wouldn’t do that, unless they knew the person behind the camera.

 

_ Goodbye Grandfather  _

 

Inside his brain, The Doctor could feel as multiple parts of the multiverse crashed against one another, the wheels that built time and space grinding as The Doctor’s sudden thought set the into motion.

 

He had seen her, smiling at him and posing one way and the other with laughter on her lips. She had waved her hand at him and bid him goodbye. 

 

She had known exactly who he was, and done everything she could to tell him, and he hadn’t even noticed.

 

“Doctor? Are you okay?” Bill asks, pushing lightly against The Doctor's shoulder, trying to make him wake from his stupor. He seems to have frozen completely, and Bill wonders what it is about her mothers name that affected him so. 

 

Waking up, realizing that he hasn’t been contactable minutes and now Bill is worried about him.

 

Out of the corner of his eyes, the tiny teenage girl is teasing him. She’s making silly faces and pointing at the photo of his desk.

 

He turn over. Susan, the real Susan  is staring back at him from her frame. He picks up the photo, and hand it to Bill.

 

“What’s this? Who's this girl?” Bill ask, staring down at the black white polaroid. The little girl stare back at him, smug smile on her perfectly shaped lips. Her eyes feel as though they’re seeing right through her. 

 

“It’s my grandaughter. Her name, when she came here to Earth, was Susan Foreman.” The Doctor explains, smiling slightly. The girl t the corner of his eye is nodding approvingly.

 

“She had the same first name as my mum?” Bill looks at The Doctor, surprised. She hadn’t know they shared a name.

 

“She had the exact same name as your mother” The Doctor says, his eyes looking behind Bill as he sees Susan  - the Susan thay was always there in his thoughts - approaching Bill. “She married a man, on Earth in the 22nd Century. His name, was David Campbell, and she became his wife. Susan Campbell.”

 

Suddenly, the ghost of Susan is grabbing onto Bill’s arm and at the same time, Bill turns around. She looks terrified, her hole face reflecting the perfect Shakespearean look of heartbreak.

 

“Bill, is something wrong?” The Doctor is worried. The ghost was supposed to be within his mind, not out there, not anywhere where it could even as much as touch anything from the real world.

 

His heartbreak and sorrow was not supposed to come alive before their eyes.

 

“Doctor…” Bill says slowly, frightfully. “Are you trying to tell me something?”

 

“Yes. Maybe. What do you think?” The Doctor look at her, waiting for her response.

 

Bill sigh. She closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. “I think I want you to be honest with me. Is...is my mum your granddaughter?” Another deep breath. “Was I born in the twenty second Century?”

 

“Yes, and no. You were born in a cheap flat in Shoreditch while Moira was out to buy milk. But yes, I believe your mother was your granddaughter.” The Doctor smiled, still grappling with the concept himself. Susan is standing smiling in his peripheral vision once more, though, so somehow he imagine it must be doing it right.

  
  


“How do you know? Was that why you took me on as your tutor? Couldn’t you just have said something?!” Bill screech, jumping off the desk and moving away from The Doctor. Tears threatened in her eyes, and she looked devistated.

 

“No!” The Doctor protested, putting away the guitare and preparing to follow her. “I didn’t realise Bill! Not until today, when you told me about her. Not even when...when I took photos of her! I saw her,I felt something stirring in my soul, but I didn’t realise!”

 

“What? You mean you didn’t even recognise your own Granddaughter?! And...and she’s like  _ super  _ pale so how am i like this? My mum wasn't like that!” She scream, waving around the photo before The Doctor’s eyes.

 

“Please, be careful with the photo” Suddenly worried, The Doctor tried to take it from Bill, but she janked her arm away.

 

“No way, it’s  _ my _ mum!” She protested, throwing her arm back just a little too much and watching in horror as the wooden frame slipped out of her hand, landing on the other side of the room with an audible crash.

 

Horrified, stunned into silence, they both watched it lying there. Finally, The Doctor broke free from the trance and ran across the room, brushing off glass and wood and picking it up.

 

“Time Lords and Ladies regenerate.” He said. “Face, hair, gender...ever race can change. If you are white, it doesn't mean you will always be.” The Doctor stared down at Susan’s smiling face, then looked at Bill. Susan stood behind him, looking saddened. Sometimes, The Doctor wondered if he was really mad, or if she was really there.

 

He noticed the way Bill reacted when she touched her.

 

Across the room, Bill frowned. “Do you...you really think she’s my mum, don’t you? And...and you’re my great grandfather. Somehow.” She looked at him, trying to measure him and reveal hidden intention. The only thing she noticed though, was how he kept looking past her left shoulder. “Is there someone behind me?” 

 

The Doctor shook his head, forcing himself to look away from Susan as Bill seemed to grow suspicious. “Yes Bill, I do. Susan Campbell, who got a wireless radio when she first came to Earth in the 1960s and who danced to John Smith and the common men, she was and will always be my granddaughter.”

 

“Three Guitars mood Two by John Smith and the common men, that’s what started all of this!” Bill exclaimed, suddenly overwhelmed.  “You tried to play John Smith and the common men on your guitare, and, and I said my mum always loved to listen to that when she was young…” 

 

“But you didn’t get it, because your mum grew up in the 80s when that music was long out of date...but she didn’t grow up in the 80s did she? She grew up in the 60s. For five months, we stayed there, and during that time she fell in love with John Smith and the common men.” The Doctor smiled, opening up his arms almost as though he was expecting a hug - he didn’t, he wouldn’t, but it was a backbone reflex from many years ago that sat tight inside him, refusing to let go. Therefor, it is all the more surprising as he feel Susan latching onto him, hugging him tight.

 

Burying her head against The Doctor’s shoulder, she held onto him tight. “You’re a big idiot” She whispered, not quite what else to say as her heart continued to beat all too fast. She had a great grandfather, a family member someone with whom she truly belonged. It was nothing she had ever even imagined that she could have, amd then  in and just a few hours it had all been offered to her.

 

It made her feel happy, a true lovely happiness she had never felt before.

 

_ I’m so proud if you Bill. Of you and Grandfather. _

 

On instinct, Bill looks over The Doctor’s shoulder, and she can see her standing there. A dark haired little girl that bite her lip and smile mischievously, waving a hand at her.

 

Bill blinks, thinking it must all be a dream.

 

A dark skinned woman stand in the girls place. Bill knows who she is, recognise her even without hearing her speak.

 

“Mum” She gasp, new tears suddenly threatening in her eyes. She was there, her mum, watching the both of them from the sidelines.

 

The woman put a finger to her lips, shushing softly. 

 

_ I’m so proud of you, my family _

 

**Author's Note:**

> Commemts and criticism are very welcome!


End file.
